Review: Joe Henry Reverie (Anti)

A few months before welcoming Meshell Ndegeocello to his Garfield House studio, Joe Henry made his most recent solo album there. Reverie is a pure and marvelous realization of Henry''s open approach to writing and performing: Songs full of simple beauty and desperate characters seem to bloom organically from the interplay of acoustic instruments.

A few months before welcoming Meshell Ndegeocello to his Garfield House studio, Joe Henry made his most recent solo album there. Reverie is a pure and marvelous realization of Henry''s open approach to writing and performing: Songs full of simple beauty and desperate characters seem to bloom organically from the interplay of acoustic instruments. This is a New Orleans–style affair with drums marching through, and Keefus Ciancia on that upright piano by turns driving the track forward and shaking things way up. Guitar work by Marc Ribot was added after the live recordings were complete, and he''s off-center and wonderfully evocative as usual. Here''s an album that''s musically just as inspiring as one would expect from an artist/producer who speaks so eloquently about record-making.